


Life Support

by lesbianettes



Series: Lightyears [2]
Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Baby Whump, Gen, Space AU, Space Flu, Whump, asshole!crockett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:27:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29295885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: Harper is in worse shape than Crockett expected.
Series: Lightyears [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2106366
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Life Support

There is no crib on the ship, for obvious reasons, so Crockett has no choice but to sit in his chair and cradle Harper against his chest. She’s so small. Her snuffles and soft breathing is often interrupted by wet coughs and phlegm that he’s stopped trying to wipe off the repellent material of his space suit. He’ll just change once he figures where he can set her down and if she’ll be okay on her own for a few minutes. 

It was the recklessness of Claire that led to their daughter getting sick, a fact that fills him with more frustration than righteous anger, much to his own chagrin. He knows he’s not as attached to his daughter as most parents would be, but it’s not his fault; he never wanted her, and he’s never met her before now anyways. 

Harper needs a change of clothes, he realizes, because she must have been traveling for days in this little pink suit. He doesn’t have anything to change her into, but he could wrap her in a blanket while he washes her space suit. Fuck, they’ll have to stop at a port and get some supplies for a baby. Can she eat normal food? Should he hire a babysitter? What are her language skills like? It’s all so confusing. There should be (and probably are somewhere) books on this stuff. 

He pings a message to Jimmy that their next stop needs to be a port and rubs Harper’s back when she coughs again. Her little lips have begun to tinge purple, so he finds an oxygen mask and fits it over her face, even though it’s far too big for her. She blinks up at him with such trust on her small face that it makes his chest begin to ache. 

“I didn’t want you,” he whispers. 

Harper reaches up with a tiny hand and places it over his on the oxygen mask. 

“I didn’t want you to be born, and I didn’t want Claire to send you to me.”

She hiccups.

It’s not as though Harper really knows what he said, but he still feels kind of bad after speaking his mind. He strokes her face in apology and she babbles at him happily. She’s an energetic baby, he thinks, neurotic and excitable like her mother. Crockett wonders if he could convince April to look after the baby. She’s a woman, after all, and they like babies a lot more than he does. 

Briefly, it crosses his mind to give Harper up. It’s not as though he ever really wanted her, but the thought makes some part of him tie up in little knots and scream for the daughter he didn’t ask for. So he will not be abandoning her, regardless of how fucked up it was of Claire to dump this on him. 

He realizes that Harper has fallen into a peaceful sleep, and allows himself to do the same. 

When he wakes up, the others are stripping off their space suits, except for Maggie, who’s standing in front of him with a camera. He rolls his eyes and stands up, cradling Harper against his chest and going to hook her back up to the vitals machine. She’s back to a healthy color, thanks to the oxygen, and her pulse ox shows to be in the upper nineties. He leaves the mask over her face for now, because her sats still aren’t back to normal even with it, but her heart rate and blood pressure are within acceptable range. 

“How’s she doing?”

Crockett looks up at Jimmy, whose face is uncharacteristically soft, and smiles a little. “Better. She gave me a bit of a scare earlier with her color, but some oxygen helped.”

“She need a hospital?”

“Maybe.”

Jimmy hums and comes around to face Crockett properly, brushing Harper’s small face with the backs of two fingers. He’s never been this tender in front of any of them, but something about the baby seems to bring it out of him, the same way April made that cliche’d high-pitched “aw” sound when she saw Harper. “We’re stopping at a port to get some baby supplies you’ll need,” he says. “A crib, diapers, baby food. We can go somewhere with a hospital and let them check her out, maybe prescribe something proper for the space flu.”

Neither of them mention that staying in space with them means Harper’s fragile lungs may never fully develop or recover. They want to believe she will be okay, that keeping her is the best decision, that they can be enough.

Whatever was developing between Crockett and the others is quickly vanishing in lieu of their pity. They all feel bad for him, worse for Harper. It will no longer be on the table to steal quick kisses in the control bay or frottage in the closet. He has to be a father now. All his wants and needs take a back seat to Harper’s health and safety. That was supposed to be Claire’s job.

“April thinks you ought to settle down somewhere,” Jimmy says gently. “Get a job, put Harper through school.”

“I have a job, and it’s my dream. I’m not giving it up because my wife tried to fuck me over.”

“We’re talking about your kid here, Kett-”

“Who I never wanted!”

As soon as Crockett raises his voice, Harper begins to cry loudly, and all his attention turns to settling her down before the wailing gives him a headache. Jimmy leaves with an indecipherable look on his face, abandoning Crockett to try and figure out how to settle a fussy child all by himself. He’s never done this before. He doesn’t know what to do. The longer she cries, the more he feels like crying back, until Maggie comes and helps him adjust his hold and begin to smoothly rock to quiet the babe down.

“I used to work at a daycare,” Maggie whispers. “Works every time.”

He nods and tries to hand her Harper, but she raises her eyebrow and crosses her arms. 

“We’re here to help, but I heard you talking to Lanik. We’re not gonna do this for you, Crockett.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @milkymarjan


End file.
